‘This is not a threat you can have,’ president says of Iran’s nuclear program
President Donald Trump said Iran must offer its “unconditional surrender” so the United States can blow up its nuclear sites, adding that it’s too late for Tehran to negotiate.
“Very simple. Unconditional surrender. That means, ‘I’ve had it. I’ve had it. I give up. No more.’ Then we go blow up all the nuclear stuff that’s all over the place there. They had bad intentions,” Trump said during a Wednesday press gaggle. “For 40 years, they’ve been saying ‘death to America,’ ‘death to Israel,’ death to anybody else that they didn’t like. They were bullies. They were schoolyard bullies, and now they’re not bullies anymore.”
“Iran’s got a lot of trouble. And they want to negotiate. And I said, ‘Why didn’t you negotiate with me before all this death and destruction? … Why didn’t you negotiate with me two weeks ago?’ You could have done fine. You would have had a country,” Trump added. “It’s very late to be talking. We may meet. There’s a big difference between now and a week ago.”
Earlier on Wednesday, Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei said the country wouldn’t surrender and “any military intervention by the U.S. will undoubtedly lead to irreparable damage.” A reporter asked Trump for his response.
“I say, ‘Good luck,’” Trump said.
The president’s comments follow statements the president posted to Truth Social on Tuesday calling for Iran’s “unconditional surrender.” He also said the United States knows exactly where Khamenei is “hiding,” warning that “our patience is wearing thin.”
Since Thursday, Israel has carried out an offensive against Iran, killing top leaders and nuclear scientists and striking nuclear facilities. Trump has openly considered ordering the U.S. military to launch its own airstrikes.
“Is there anybody here that said it would be okay to have a hostile—zealots really—to have a hostile country have a nuclear weapon?” Trump said. “This is just not a threat you can have.”
The president refused to say if the United States would, in fact, carry out its own strikes on Iran, though he said he told Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “keep going.”
“I can’t say that, right? You don’t seriously think I’m going to answer that question,” Trump said. “You don’t know that I’m going to even do it. You don’t know. I may do it. I may not do it. Nobody knows what I’m going to do.”
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